Former the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi has started to throw the blame onto Governor Kathy Hochul (D-NY) for the failure of the Democratic Party to retain control of the House of Representatives coming out of the midterm elections 2022.
Despite Democrats ending up in a better position than previously expected throughout the midterms — and Republicans only managing to secure a win by a slim majority — Pelosi made the claim that Democrats could have maintained a hold on the majority if Hochul had realized much sooner that the issue of crime was key with voters in her state.
Pelosi spoke out with these statements as part of an interview which took place with Maureen Dowd from the New York Times, making the argument that down-ticket Republicans ended up doing a bit better in New York due to the fact that Hochul did not have enough sway in her state.
“She said that she believed the Democrats could have held onto the House in November if top New York pols had realized that the key issue in that state was crime,” explained Dowd.
“The governor didn’t realize soon enough where the trouble was,” explained Pelosi about Hochul, adding that the issue should have been dealt with quite a bit sooner.
Hochul took quite a bit of criticism from Republicans — not the least of which happened to come from her opponent in the 2022 gubernatorial race, Lee Zeldin (R-NY). To go along with his calling out of Hochul quite a few times for not dealing with the issue, Zeldin found himself at the center of a number of crime stories that he then utilized to massive effect in order to strengthen his position.
As part of one of his campaign stops, Zeldin ended up being physically attacked — despite this, however, he and a number of others in the area were able to take down the attacker and pin him until police officials made it to the scene in order to take him into custody. Zeldin, who ended up getting away uninjured, carried on with his speech over bail reform once the man had been taken away. Despite everything, the attacker’s quick release from jail only served to put a neat bow on the claims from Zeldin that New York was not doing its due diligence in trying to stop violent criminals and keep them behind bars.
Later on, in the same campaign, another shooting took place just outside the personal residence of Zeldin which had his teen daughters inside cowering in fear.
“After my daughters heard the gunshots and the screaming, they ran upstairs, locked themselves in the bathroom and immediately called 911,” Zeldin went on. “They acted very swiftly and smartly every step of the way and Diana and I are extremely proud of them.”
